Google is cracking down on fake app installs intended to cheat Play Store rankings

If you are an Android user you may have noticed how some apps are prominently featured in the Pay Store, even though some times they don’t seem to deserve it. They do this through fraudulent installs, fake reviews, and incentivized ratings. Well, Google is on to them. Today the company announced that it's rolling out improved detection and filtering systems to help rid the visibility of less-than-stellar applications in Android's app marketplace.

Writing on the Android Developers Blog, Google Search Quality Analyst Kazushi Nagayama and Product Manager Andrew Ahn, noted that this type of manipulation violates the Google Play developer policy and harms other developers by hindering their chances of being discovered or recommended. “Ultimately, they put the end users at risk of making wrong decisions based on inaccurate, unauthentic information,” the post reads.

Nagayama and Ahn said that if an install is conducted with the intention to manipulate an app's placement on Google Play, Google’s systems will detect and filter it. Developers who continue to exhibit such behaviors could have their apps taken down from Google Play.

Developers are still allowed to use marketing firms and third-party promoters, but Google cautions to ensure that any promotions for apps are "based on legitimate practices."